


Fear and Loneliness

by MarikaFromCincy



Category: For All Mankind (TV 2019)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-23 14:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23712880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarikaFromCincy/pseuds/MarikaFromCincy
Summary: Utterly alone at Jamestown, Ellen begins to contemplate her life on Earth and what she had and did not have with Pam.
Relationships: Ellen Waverley/Pam Horton, Ellen Wilson/Pam Horton, Tracy Stevens/Gordon Stevens
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Fear and Loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my fic about Ellen Waverly and Pam from For All Mankind. Because you can’t combine women driven historical workplace dramas with queernees and anything related to “Bomb Girls” without me showing up. So I really connected to Ellen Waverly, as the queer, Sally Ride-ish played by Jodi Balfour astronaut, who is far less bold because the subtle sci-fi elements of the show upped the timeline for the space race.

Ellen Waverly knew she was having a nightmare. 

For as long as she could remember, she could tell in the nightmare that she was having a nightmare. It did not make it any better during it, but it was easier when she woke up sometimes. She had been having the same one since she had taken over command of the Jamestown base. It always started with Deke in the Apollo 25 ship laughing at her after she told him about Pam. It was so strange and out of place that she didn’t know how to feel about it, not in the actual situation or in the nightmare. But in the nightmare, sometimes while he was saying his last declaration to her, he morphed into Frank. 

“If we make it through this, don’t tell anyone else what you told me. There are too many people in the world like me and it’s all they’ll see,” the Deke-Frank hybrid would say. 

She would then launch herself out of the hatch with the clip in her hand to latch onto the tanks Ed had mis-thrown over. Most of the time the tanks morphed into Pam, dressed for a shift at the Outpost and not wearing a space suit. One time she was in a spacesuit and that made if even worse that so often she wasn’t. Ellen would watch her be affected by exposure to deep space in all its incredible and terrible detail. She then usually woke up. 

On her 40th day at Jamestown, Ellen started awake violently. Thankfully she had learned to stop jerking up in her sleep after banging her head on the bunk above her the first few nights.  
There was a crackling coming from the communications and video-link booth near the shower. Ellen groaned as she pulled the screen covering her bunk down toward her feet but continued laying on her back with her eyes closed.

“Broadcasting live on Jamestown Radio 1, it’s everyone’s favorite astro-husband and wife duo,” Gordo’s tinny voice said as it filled the base.

“The Stevens!” Tracy chimed in. “And a wake-up call and good morning shout out to our favorite listener, Ellen Wilson. Wake up, darlin’. We got an update for you.”

Ellen smiled and shook her head to herself on her bunk as she rubbed her face and jumped down. She placed the nearby headset over her hair, which she had taken to keeping in a ponytail as she slept since the shower was so finnicky. 

“Long time listener, first time caller,” Ellen joked at the audio-only connection to Houston. “What’s the update?” 

“We regret to inform you that Apollo 26, your relief mission, has been delayed,” Tracy told her slowly. Ellen could almost imagine the her biting her lip as she reluctantly gave her the information. 

“Two weeks?” Ellen asked shaking her head. She had heard from Gordo, Dani, and Ed that it was always two weeks. 

“Two weeks,” Gordo confirmed. “But for some good news, your supply transport should be arriving in a few hours.” 

“Good,” Ellen replied nodding to herself. She was down to her least favorite food packets. 

“There’s some exciting stuff in there,” Tracy told her.

“Oh, really?” Ellen replied, assuming she was joking. 

“Don’t ask me how she did it,” Gordo explained sounding impressed. “But Dani managed to get you six episodes of ‘MASH’ and a copy of ‘Robin Hood’.”

“Well that’s better than the single Frank Sinatra record that Ed left here,” Ellen stated, drawing a laugh from both of them.

“And even I don’t know what magic she used,” Tracy began, matching Gordo’s impressed tone. “But Karen managed to get two care packages in there.”

The three of them were all silent for a moment. 

“You doin’ alright there, darlin’?” Tracy asked seriously. 

Ellen was relieved that they could not see her. “Yes,” she lied to them. “I’m fine. 40 days, just me and two Soviets on the moon. What could possibly be wrong?” 

Down in Mission Control at JAC in Houston, Tracy motioned to her husband beside her with a serious expression. Gordo nodded to her, for she of course was right. 

“You, uh, know, Ellen,” Gordo began with an awkwardness that his wife could clearly see but Ellen could only slightly hear. “Trace is only here because Dani is getting’ her cast removed today. So…um…if you want to just talk with other Jamestown vets, we can set that up for you. We all went through some shit up there and…and we’ll get you whatever you want regardless of it is.” 

Ellen felt all her emotions rise painfully to her chest. She covered her mouth and silenced her reaction from the Stevens for a moment, she just needed a little bit of processing time. 

“I’m fine, Gordo,” she lied. “I’m fine.” 

“Okay, okay,” he replied. He waited for a moment as if he was waiting for her to say something else. Ellen was thankful that he did not force her into anything. “Houston, out.” 

“Jamestown, out,” she replied. 

She pulled off the headset and peered around the empty base. She was utterly alone. At first, she thought she might enjoy the aloneness, but having aloneness on Earth was not the same here. She could spend endless nights alone in her apartment but call her friends or brothers or Pam, when she was willing to speak with her, if she wanted to. But she had no such options at Jamestown. She was alone and there was no escaping it. 

She consumed her food packet and then prepared to head out to the ice mine. It always seemed like such a slow and starkly beautiful yet boring rover ride to the crater. She often wondered if Ed ever imagined if he had been in his flashy corvette as he did the desolate drive. She had taken to imagining herself in the passenger seat of Pam’s orange Volkswagen Passat. It was such an average car for an average American girl and in so many ways that was all that Pam was. 

Ellen knew that. She knew that in her heart and her soul and that was part of why she loved Pam so much. She had always thought she had to be extraordinary in every single aspect of her life to ever matter, but then after a few months of intense friendship Pam began displaying that she loved her. It was almost too much for Ellen at first. She was beginning noticed by someone who finally truly saw who she was and none of it matter. She still wanted her, even though she was going to disrupt her perfectly average life forever.

Ellen laughed at herself. She was worrying about ruining a gay woman bartender’s life as she mined ice on the moon. It was absurd. That was why she ended it, right? The whole goddamn thing was impossible.

Once she returned to Jamestown, she ran through her list of experiments inside the base. While she was writing an update on Dani’s ants while listening to Frank Sinatra, the communications booth began to buzz with an incoming video call. Ellen sat on the stool in front of it and placed the headset over her unwashed, greasy hair. 

“P-Pam,” she shuttered in surprise at the woman on the other end of the video call.

“Hey,” the bartender said with such a normal and casual smile, Ellen almost forgot that their main conflict had been caused by her being on the moon. 

_Ugh, stop that,_ Ellen scolded herself. Her being an astronaut or stationed on the moon was never the main issue between her and Pam, she had realized during her isolation. She had been a goddamn idiot. A beautiful, understanding, accepting woman, who even knew a shit load about her career, loved her and was never even nervous about what their gender or sexuality would mean to their communities. Maybe it was flippant and careless, but it was also brave and bold, and Ellen only ever wanted to be that. But it seemed like a far cry from her stool in front of the video link at Jamestown. 

“Hi,” Ellen told her awkwardly. “It is good to see you.” 

Pam scoffed. “You really mean that, Ellen?”


End file.
